


I'm Better (Now That You're Here)

by zeesqueere



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fenris and Hawke are metamours, Isabela has two hands and both of them are for holding major fuck-ups, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Dragon Age II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeesqueere/pseuds/zeesqueere
Summary: Happily Ever Afters still have to start somewhere.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Isabela, Fenris/Isabela
Kudos: 2





	I'm Better (Now That You're Here)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JellyDishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JellyDishes/gifts).



> [Originally posted to Tumblr 2019/08/18](https://zeesqueere.tumblr.com/post/187090945658/angstfluff-prompt-list).  
> Written for @AntivanCrafts (@slothabed on Tumblr) as response to an ask meme: “'I’m better, now that you’re here.' for isabela, because that woman needs to hear gratitude sometimes amiright". Meme can be accessed [here](https://hellsdemonictrinity.tumblr.com/post/160523410875/angstfluff-prompt-list).

Great streaks of angry sunlight across the sky burned bloody and bright. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. The thought distracted her just enough to let the first tendrils of weariness creep past her defenses. They’d been caught arguing all night—again—and to say it was becoming tiresome was to make the understatement of the decade.

“Isabela,” a voice cut through the air. To hear her name in that tone from a lover was generally the lead-up to storms to rival those forecasted far above them. She barked out a laugh in the hopes her sigh at the end wouldn’t be taken for what it was.

“Isabela,” Fenris repeated.

“What?” she snapped before catching herself, closing her eyes and rubbing at her temples. “Sorry. It’s just too late—early?—for a glare like that. You’re going to start something in me I can’t follow through on, and that’s just cruel.”

“The point is,” Sybil inserted herself into the back and forth with a hand on Fenris’ shoulder and a look as soft as she could manage under the circumstances, “you seem even more restless than usual lately. It’s rubbing off on the crew and on us.” She paused to take in Fenris’ nod of agreement at her statement before continuing: “I would like to know what’s wrong, that’s all.”

“And I as well,” Fenris agreed. “The fact that you’re fighting to obfuscate the truth is… Aggravating. Myself and Sybil, both of us know you better than for that to work.”

“You know me,” Isabela parroted flatly; it wasn’t even made a question. “Then you tell me. You know me so well, after all.”

“Bela, please,” Sybil cracked a little. The darkness under her eyes looked so deep and swollen Isabela half-expected a demon to crawl out of Hawke’s face.

“We love you,” Fenris stated plainly; Sybil nodded in agreement this time. “If you’re mentally caught on something, we both want to help you free yourself once more.”

Despite her firm stance and the tension still winching her shoulders towards her neck, Isabela seemed to sag a little at Fenris’ words and the expression across the faces of two of her lovers. Her own expression fell a little less irritated in answer. “I’m not… Alright, I’m a little—” she paused to find her words, puffing air from her cheeks in the interim. “I’m restless, yes. I’m tense and wound up and—I’m nervous, alright? Is that what you want from me? Honesty? Well, honestly, it’s a little overwhelming to have my worlds colliding. We’re sailing away from Kirkwall with my crew and you’re both still with me and here we are, all together. It’s very fairy tale.”

“You mean you feel like we’re in the middle of our happily ever after?” Sybil teased slightly. “That’s a rather sweet thought there, Bela. Getting openly sentimental on us? About time I rubbed off on you.”

“Don’t,” Fenris interrupted before Isabela could respond with anything more than a cocked eyebrow. “Still,” he said with voice ever-so-slightly raised in order to cut through the other tension growing in the air, “I understand feeling things that prove hard to express. Thank you for letting Sybil and me both see you a little more clearly.”

Sybil finally reached out and took one of Isabela’s hands: “there’s nothing inside of you that would ever make me love you less.”

“Nor I,” Fenris insisted as he copied the movement.

Isabela pulled them both in closer until they tumbled into a hug. The long hours and vibrant mood lighting could bear the brunt of the blame for this, she reassured herself briefly. Her next thought brushed that notion away as she tightened her arms until they burned. Still neither of them complained.

“Thank you both,” she murmured against Fenris’ shoulder. “I’ve just been silly. Nothing could be better than what’s fallen into my lap and here I am trying to push it away. Push you away.”

“It’s alright, Bela,” Sybil says in a voice that sails over her head. “We’re not going anywhere—and not just because we’re on a ship with no shore nearby.”

Fenris coughed something close to a snicker at that.

“A fair point,” Isabela conceded. “Still, I’ll be better.”

“I’m better now you’re here and truly with us,” Fenris says slowly.

Isabela couldn’t see Sybil’s smile, but it was apparent in her voice as she followed, “and so am I.”

Clouds and doubts be cursed, maybe they really would all find a way to make it through and be alright. Maybe things would work out, occasional storms or no. Maybe this was just the start of their happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> If I'm entirely honest, I'm not actually that much a Fenris fan; I only hope that I captured some of his energy here so that no one seems too OOC.


End file.
